Perla by Carolina de Robertis is a Moving Coming-of-Age Story

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Recipe by the Book: Carolina de Robertis’s Family Secret Flan

Perla by Carolina de Robertis is a coming-of-age story based on one of the darkest chapters in Argentinean history.

Growing up as a privileged only child in Buenos Aires, Perla Correa learned early on not to discuss the profession of her naval officer father in a country still reeling from the abuses of a deposed military dictatorship. But when an uninvited visitor appears in Perla’s home, this encounter sets her on a journey that will force her to confront the unease she has suppressed all her life—and to make a wrenching decision about who she is, and who she will become.

Praise for Perla:

“Beautiful…. Wrenching…. De Robertis is an extraordinarily courageous writer who only gets better with every book.”—Junot Díaz

“Mesmerizing…. A moving, poetic novel about the costs of revolution and the evolutionary process that is identity.” —O, The Oprah Magazine

“Haunting…a sensitive exploration of love, loyalty, and hope in the wake of atrocity.” —The New Yorker

“De Robertis brings the best of two cultures to bear in her work, melding the Latin literary tradition of magical realism with a thoroughly modern, politically charged North American sensibility…. [Her] extraordinary gift makes this brave, important book an object of beauty.” —Chicago Tribune

“De Robertis holds the reader’s attention with her entrancingly rhythmic and pulsating prose…. [Her] voice is distinctive and her novel vivid and memorable.” —The Wall Street Journal